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Generation Me

By Lisa Belkin May 28, 2010 10:51 amMay 28, 2010 10:51 am

Human Empire

As my colleague Judith Warner writes in an essay in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, demographers and pundits have given this latest generation many names — “Generation Y — also known as the millennials, echo boomers or, less flatteringly, Generation Me.”

If I could add one to this list, it would be the “T-Ball generation.” It’s telling that kids (many of them now young adults), born between 1982 and 2002, started out by swinging at an unmoving ball held in front of them at a hittable height and were given as many swings as they needed.

Is this a problem? It certainly looks like one. This generation has “been depicted … by employers, professors and earnestly concerned mental-health experts as entitled whiners who have been spoiled by parents who overstoked their self-esteem, teachers who granted undeserved A’s and sports coaches who bestowed trophies on any player who showed up.”

And yet, Warner argues, all these years spent building their self-esteem might have been just the inoculation they needed for the times they are inheriting. Jobs are tough to find. Mom and Dad are the only landlords they can afford. But data shows that they are still confident and finicky — certain they will find fulfilling work on their own terms.

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